Hardwiring Happiness

The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence

Random House, Inc.Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated?

Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences, but slowly from good ones.

You can change this.

Life isn’t easy, and having a brain wired to take in the bad and ignore the good makes us worried, irritated, and stressed, instead of confident, secure, and happy. But each day is filled with opportunities to build inner strengths and Dr. Rick Hanson, an acclaimed clinical psychologist, shows what you can do to override the brain’s default pessimism.

Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace. You’ll learn to see through the lies your brain tells you. Dr. Hanson’s four steps build strengths into your brain—counterbalancing its ancient negativity bias—making contentment and a powerful sense of resilience the new normal. In mere minutes each day, you can transform your brain into a refuge and power center of calm and happiness. You can hardwire in happiness.

Baker & Taylor"SEE THROUGH THE LIES YOUR BRAIN TELLS YOU Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? Your brain was wired this way when it evolved, primed to learn quickly from bad experiences, but not so muchfrom the good ones. It's an ancient survival mechanism that turned the brain into Velcro for the negative, but Teflon for the positive. Life isn't easy, and having a brain wired to take in the bad and ignore the good makes us worried, irritated and stressed, instead of confident, secure and happy. Every day is filled with opportunities to build these strengths inside, but the brain is designed to ignore and waste them. This makes you come down harder on yourself than you do other people, feel inadequate even though you get a hundred things done, and lonely even when support is all around. Dr. Rick Hanson, an acclaimed neuropsychologist and internationally bestselling author, shows us what we can do to override the brain's default programming. Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures that stick to happiness, love, confidence, and peace. Dr. Hanson's four steps build a brain strong enough to withstand its ancient negativity bias, allowing contentment and a powerful sense of well-being to become the new normal. In mere minutes each day, we can transform our brains into oases of calm and happiness. We can hardwire in happiness"--

Opinion

From the critics

Community Activity

Comment

"Take in the good." This is the essence of the message here, to use a very user-friendly overview of neuro-medical understanding for a better, more stable, more peaceful way of living. In an age of human evolution where we spend much more time proportionally in sedentary but stressful thought-situations, the author here offers practical advice on how to notice more of the positive which is a part of our experience, but beyond this mindful focus, he teaches us how to give the positive more time, more attention, and thus more effect on our mental health.

Excellent, easy to understand, easy to apply and practice with immediate results in experiencing more joy, peace, and love in life! If nothing else, learn how to not be so worry-some or hard on yourself. Finally a "how to" book for emotional and mental health that is more than psychological/philosophical and actually works!
I agree with the author that the fourth step is optional so recommend focusing on and developing skill in using the first three steps of the process.